Actual EW modleing in DCS...

Any chance we could get a vaguely realistic implementation of electronic warfare in DCS? You know, ECM, ECCM. Freq hopping comms, GPS jamming, comm jamming etc? I mean right now, its basically all missing, and in alot of ways its akin to say leaving SAMS out of the game.

#Classification

While I'm sure the actual details for some stuff is pretty well classified, alot of how it "ish" works isn't and that would really up the "realism". For example how realistic is it to have the F18C doing SEAD without EW support?

As it stands now, DCS is great for modeling bombing mud huts in a very permissive environment simulator, not what modern A/A combat would really look like between near peer adversaries even in the 90's.

It also begs the question as to why they are pushing for the most modern aircraft instead of doing a better job on say modeling the 80's where most of this information could be better guessed at. And EW was much more primitive.

Isn't jamming easy, like it's just the same signal repeated 180 degrees out of phase, at least the meat of it, if if it may be more complicated and sophisticated then I guess I don't know, or if there's more types.

There's always room for these general improvements where feature is implemented in it's basics for various misc stuff, let's say some unit on the ground turns on a "jammer" ... just go with the basic jammer and tune it to the strenght and other basic params for the unit, doesn't need to be a unit specific simulation/modelling, and then as things get declassified you go on from there.

So yeah, its a wee bit more complicated, what you describe is one type of wave form.

So some relevant 60's 70's 80's technologies in a nutshell. Generally it has to do with the frequency(ies) the radar is working at and blowing those out.

Spot jamming occurs when a jammer focuses all of its power on a single frequency. While this would severely degrade the ability to track on the jammed frequency, a frequency agile radar would hardly be affected because the jammer can only jam one frequency. While multiple jammers could possibly jam a range of frequencies, this would consume a great deal of resources to have any effect on a frequency-agile radar, and would probably still be ineffective.

Sweep jamming is when a jammer's full power is shifted from one frequency to another. While this has the advantage of being able to jam multiple frequencies in quick succession, it does not affect them all at the same time, and thus limits the effectiveness of this type of jamming.

Although, depending on the error checking in the device(s) this can render a wide range of devices effectively useless.

Barrage jamming is the jamming of multiple frequencies at once by a single jammer. The advantage is that multiple frequencies can be jammed simultaneously; however, the jamming effect can be limited because this requires the jammer to spread its full power between these frequencies. So the more frequencies being jammed, the less effectively each is jammed.

Base jamming is a new type of Barrage Jamming where one radar is jammed effectively at its source at all frequencies. However, all other radars continue working normally.

More under the spoofing category:

Digital radio frequency memory, or DRFM jamming, or Repeater jamming is a repeater technique that manipulates received radar energy and retransmits it to change the return the radar sees. This technique can change the range the radar detects by changing the delay in transmission of pulses, the velocity the radar detects by changing the doppler shift of the transmitted signal, or the angle to the plane by using AM techniques to transmit into the sidelobes of the radar.

Deceptive jamming uses techniques like "range gate pull-off" to break a radar lock.

These methodologies can also create a "False" track for the radar operator. I.e. now you see 2 or 3 different planes in different places. Plus modern AESA radars can do this stuff, not just dedicated jamming aircraft.

Of course there are counters to at least some of these techniques on the SAM side.

And it gets more complicated in modern systems.

I understand that we won't get the specs needed to model US jammers exactly like their real world counterparts, but there is more than enough information freely available on the internet to enable you to model EW-systems that behave very, very close to how they would in real life. Things like the power output of different jamming systems would have to be estimated but the techniques they use can be closely replicated. And even though it wouldn't be 100% accurate, it would orders of magnitude better than what we have now.

DCS does already simulate basic EW functionality. Many AI and player aircraft are equipped with jammers in DCS. The jamming equipped player aircraft are the following:

- A-10C (with pod)

- Mirage 2000

- F-15

- F-14

- MiG-21 (with pod)

- Viggen (with pod)

- F/A-18 (not yet implemented)

I don't know about the russian FC3 modules but I guess they have jammers too.

The effect of jamming on the target depends on wheter it is an AI unit or a player aircraft:

- AI units being jammed have reduced engangement ranges against the jamming contact.

- Player aircraft being jammed don't get any range information on the jamming contact and IFF won't work. Some aircraft (e.g. the Mirage 2000) also display false contacts on the radar display.

All these effects will disappear if burn through is achieved.

While I'm sure the actual details for some stuff is pretty well classified

There is more, see this https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3486410#post3486410 It could be done without all the "math" (e.g. avoid calculating RCS for every object, without wave propagation and interference for set of jamming planes).

For "gaming"it would be more than enough of just building EWImpactMatrix[$radar]vs[$jammerTech] describing the impact to get much better fun out of such "simulator" ;)

For air-to-air comms it could be even more interesting too (jamming AWACS calls, degrading future planned VOIP/radios in DCS ...) by placing some ground VHF/UHF jammers.

DCS does already simulate basic EW functionality. Many AI and player aircraft are equipped with jammers in DCS. The jamming equipped player aircraft are the following:

- A-10C (with pod)

- Mirage 2000

- F-15

- F-14

- MiG-21 (with pod)

- Viggen (with pod)

- F/A-18 (not yet implemented)

I don't know about the russian FC3 modules but I guess they have jammers too.

 

The effect of jamming on the target depends on wheter it is an AI unit or a player aircraft:

- AI units being jammed have reduced engangement ranges against the jamming contact.

- Player aircraft being jammed don't get any range information on the jamming contact and IFF won't work. Some aircraft (e.g. the Mirage 2000) also display false contacts on the radar display.

All these effects will disappear if burn through is achieved.

Yeah but its grossly oversimplified. And I think you could end up with better effects if you modeled different types of jammers/ jamming techniques/radars etc. I would love to have an AI Growler or Prowler, or spark vark as a support aircraft.

Well, actually it's not.. it is excuse. Nearly all of this is public knowledge: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Electronic+Warfare&ref=nb_sb_noss_2 (I've read some of those, they go into great details).

 

There is more, see this https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=3486410#post3486410 It could be done without all the "math" (e.g. avoid calculating RCS for every object, without wave propagation and interference for set of jamming planes).

 

For "gaming"it would be more than enough of just building EWImpactMatrix[$radar]vs[$jammerTech] describing the impact to get much better fun out of such "simulator" ;)

 

 

For air-to-air comms it could be even more interesting too (jamming AWACS calls, degrading future planned VOIP/radios in DCS ...) by placing some ground VHF/UHF jammers.

I meant the actual details of the systems, I don't think you're gonna find detailed schematics/specs of EW pods around the internet (I could be wrong). I'm familiar enough with the theories and I think you are right that it could be implemented much better without knowing exact details of things like specific power levels or more importantly antenna designs and processing schema.

EW is definitely due for an overhaul, though I have to admit that the change from the AI always blasting jammers to now where they'll hold off until locked by default was a nice improvement.

I feel like tight now it's a little too simplified. Nothing in DCS suggests the time, effort, and money devoted intergrated ECM in big fighters like the F-14/F-15 are of any value.

A lot would be done if the effects of simplistic jammers that are actually in the sim would

a) work (there are examples of jammers that can be loaded and operated but do exactly nothing)

b) have an effect that is consistent or at least agreeable across all modules looking at it

It is possible that a new EW situation will emerge at F-18C. If it's just noise suppression, there's no need to delay for so long.

Yeah but its grossly oversimplified. And I think you could end up with better effects if you modeled different types of jammers/ jamming techniques/radars etc

The jamming effect on the Mirage 2000 is quite nice, having the false contacts that show up when being jammed. The noise jamming on the MiG-21 is also quite nice IMHO.

EW is definitely due for an overhaul, though I have to admit that the change from the AI always blasting jammers to now where they'll hold off until locked by default was a nice improvement.

The AI jamming behaviour has to be set in the mission editor for each AI aircraft. Different options availble there.

b) have an effect that is consistent or at least agreeable across all modules looking at it

Yeah, that is indeed a big problem. Apparently every dev team has to development their own jamming effects for their modules, resulting in totally different jamming effects between different aircraft...

It is possible that a new EW situation will emerge at F-18C. If it's just noise suppression, there's no need to delay for so long.

Actually I'm hoping either the F18C or more likely the new IADS improvment will have something better. I very much like the ideas presented by TwojaStara in that other thread for more realistic sam radar/jamming modeling.

The jamming effect on the Mirage 2000 is quite nice, having the false contacts that show up when being jammed. The noise jamming on the MiG-21 is also quite nice IMHO.

 

The AI jamming behaviour has to be set in the mission editor for each AI aircraft. Different options availble there.

 

Yeah, that is indeed a big problem. Apparently every dev team has to development their own jamming effects for their modules, resulting in totally different jamming effects between different aircraft...

Yes the "effects" but thats all they are IMO. Otherwise its simply getting closer till you get burnthrough, which isn't always the case (it is with noise jamming).

I think the last point is pretty easy to solve. Have ED release a set of "criteria" of how each general type of jamming should effect different general types of radar displays. Same for jamming pods effects on SAM radars as TwojaStara mentioned in the other thread.